Extraordinary Means: A Novel

Meet Melissa Silverstein. She's twenty-four, witty, cynical, unemployed and unmarried, drifting through life, waiting for the action to start. And Melissa is in a coma. On the outside, she's a shell of a girl, but inside - well, her mind is churning. She's about to take you on a completely unexpected, hysterically funny and touching journey into the inner dreams of a modern-day American family.

Speaking of that family ... Dad hasn't come to visit her once. He's tied up in court trying to stop the hospital from pulling the plug. Every night, Mom's in the arms of Melissa's young doctor. Then there's her brother, Daniel. He's thinking about killing her. And a host of others - the two younger sisters, rabbis, old boyfriends, scheming aunts - are convinced that only they know what Melissa really wanted to do with her life ... and her death.

Melissa doesn't really know either, but for the first time, she's stopped drifting. And she's going to use all of her strength, all of her will, to figure out her place in this battling, loving, anxious, noisy family of hers.

Discover for yourself the story that the San Francisco Chronicle calls "an extraordinarily lively, funny novel!"